Friday, June 16, 2006

13June06 Joan and Wayland

13June06 Tuesday

Tuesday we drove over to Paihia.  From there we took the ferry over to Russell where we revisited some of the museums.  I had not been to Pompallier so I went there.  The building was built in 1842 to house the Roman Catholic mission’s printing press.  The press was eventually printing 40,000 books in Maori.  The building had become a private home for a while but now has been converted back to it’s original state.  The history of the signing of the treaty with the Maori as explained by the tour guide there was very interesting.  Apparently Pompallier was instrumental in adding a couple of sentences to the treaty that provided the Maori to religious freedom.  Before that it had been a battle between the Church of England based on the Paihia side of the bay and the Catholics on the Russell side for control.  Each claimed the others were the heathens.  At one time Russell was described as the hellhole of the Pacific.

 

The weather in Russell was pretty miserable with strong gusty winds and periods of rain.  It was still the continuation of the storms that had hit NZ for the previous 4 or 5 days.  We took the ferry back to Paihia and then headed on down to Whangerai.

 

With some help on the phone with Dave Reyburn we found our way to their home and parked the KEA in their driveway.

 

Pictures include some of the leather making process used to make book bindings, Russell dock, etc.

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